OK. This is the saga of the Spaceman and the Jam Factory. Phil Uranus works at the jam factory in Histon, right? Not any more. He’s been there about two years, working mostly nights, and obviously he hates it because it’s smelly, its dull-as-fuck manual labour, and he also has to work side by side with idiots. One particular idiot by the name of Billy was a particular thorn in Phil’s side. He did things like grass on Phil for sneaking off for a cigarette, and that was only on his (Billy’s) first day. Plus he was generally just a socially unskilled moron who everybody in the factory came to dislike pretty soon. Because of the whole Billy thing, and for several other reasons to do with onerous rules and regulations, Phil had had several flashpoint situations with the guys in the blue hats. All other employees had to wear white but the management guys wore blue just so that everybody remembered the difference between each other. Anyway, at some point the other week Phil, in some kind of subconscious nihilistic gesture that he claims not to fully understand, “dumped” or spoiled or threw away about Â£1500 worth of fruit that was to be used in the jam making process. The next day he gets into work and he is called into a blue hat’s office, whereupon he is handed a piece of paper that informs him that he is expected to attend some kind of tribunal to do with the fruit nihilism. It even mentions that he is entitled to some kind of legal representation, which is kind of a humiliating offer while you’re being humiliated. Now our Phil is famed for his impetuous nature, but this is like putting a heavy oak chest of drawers on top of an overloaded camel, and the poor spaceman simply breaks. He takes off his white hat and steps out of the office into the factory, and apparently walking through the factory with a bare head is a sackable offence in itself. What’s more it is the time of changing shifts, so the factory is full of workers, who hip to what is going on and are therefore all-agog. At this point you have to start filming the image in your mind in the style of a Western. Now Phil has thought about this moment for quite some time, because he has suspected it might occur, and he wants Billy to get his comeuppance. Funnily enough, Billy is right in the path of the DISGRUNTLED JAM ASTRONAUT, maybe 20 or 30 feet away. He sees Phil coming. Everybody looks. Phil breaks step long enough to unhook (“CLACK!”) one of the high-pressure waterhose gun-things off the wall and continues with grim determination towards the hapless gimp Billy. He raises the hose up to chest height and takes aim, and SPLOOOOOOOSHHHHHHHHsssss! Everybody cheers! Billy does nothing. Phil walks out of the factory for the last time.

Some random thoughts to ease myself back into the public sphere perhaps.

Uh…first a couple of corrections to the Lone Stromblone review, just to make me sound pompous. Firstly The New Album precedes The Old Album and not vice versa, and secondly the line in Too Old For Sports is ” I sit in a furnace, abusing my plug-ins” rather than “…abusing my buggins” although Christ knows I’ve done enough of that an’ all.

Phil-Out-Of-Space remarked that he was envious of my prolificacy (well, he didn’t say that exactly. Of course he wouldn’t) because it meant that I could entitle my latest work Giraffe and not worry that I was setting something daft in stone, or whatever. I agreed wholeheartedly, because I imagine a future scenario when some cross-eyed Um fan is asked on a shitty daytime quiz show to name all Um works in their correct sequence. I picture them breathlessly listing “…The New Album, The Old Album, Giraffe, Giraffe Outtakes, The Green Album, Ten Small Men In Sugar, The Punk Album, The Pink Album…er…um…” You know the kind of thing.

If there’s anything worse than having to routinely stuff aspects of my wretched life into this blog bag, it’s having to leave certain things out. Usually this is because they are too personal or because I might offend someone. The other night at The Portland Alex Zero, who was very tired, was trying to tell me that this was pure chickenshittedness on my part, because it was like trying to do half a thing. I agree up to a point, but I’m far too frail a personality to go around picking fights with people. Actually it’s more that I’m far too physically frail to go round picking fights with people. Anyway the point is that me and Alexis Hot Chip had a night out that would be amusing to tell you about, but I can’t.

I can tell you a good story concerning a certain SPACEMAN, however, but I’ll have to write it first.